Me.

Sadly, there still is no internet in my current residence. Except in one specific spot in one specific room sitting just so on the windowsill.

Google Search

The following two columns amused me terribly when they first came out, and I still get a kick out of them now. Here they are, for posterity (and so I don't have to search all of the internet again next time I want to reference and find them for a friend).

Awkward Suggestions: Let's have fun with the Google search box, by Michael Agger on slate.com.

The winner of the Google Suggest contest: Is It Wrong To Sleep With Your Sister?", by Michael Agger on slate.com.

The Jungle

I'd like to see an Upton Sinclair for the 21st century bring GE salmon and the current workings of the FDA and any number of other issues to light and to the public eye the way he did meat packing and immigrant conditions in The Jungle.

Gene Patenting

I think Gene Patenting is ridiculous.

Core Values

Today, speaking to a friend of mine about how important I feel it is to allow Ravenna to dictate her own relationship with Jaimes, based on her own experiences, wants, and needs, uncolored by my own issues with him, I realized I was speaking quite passionately. This gift to her is greatly important to me and speaks to one of my core values. That got me thinking; what are my other core values? What drives my choices? As an exercise, I'm going to post a few now, and then post others as they come to me over the next few days.


* Give my children the gift of a clean slate. Maintain an understanding of what my own issues are, and with whom I have issues...and keep those as my own issues. Do not pass them on. Let my children develop their own relationships with people and the world, unfettered by my biases, prejudices, and injuries.

* Maintain dignity in my interactions with the world and with others. Treat others with dignity.

* Reach out to the people around me with love. Be a healing, nurturing force in their lives where and when I am able.

* Don't become too attached to wealth or material belongings. Save and be thrifty where it makes sense, but never lose a sense of generosity or a wanting to share what I have with those I love.

* Be open to goodness. Find joy in small things. Allow myself to be surprised and to notice and engage the world in new ways.

* Take sadness, angst, grief, anger, jealousy, fear, any number of other "negative" emotions, let myself feel them, savor them, truly experience them, and realize that they enhance the overarching experience of a life. Only through contrast can we most truly appreciate what we are and what we have.

* Respect my body. Foster an awareness of my body, of what effects my actions and non-actions have on my body. Breathe. Don't be afraid to take risks and to act at times in ways that stress or challenge my body, but be aware of the causal relationships and mindful of what it is that I am doing. Care for it when I push it to or beyond comfortable limits.

* Respect my spirit. Foster an awareness of what effects my actions and non-actions have on my spirituality and on my emotional well-being. Don't be afraid to take risks and to act at times in ways that cause emotional or spiritual conflict, but be aware of the causal relationships and mindful of what it is that I am doing. Care for it when I push it to or beyond comfortable limits.

* Act in awareness. Be mindful of what effect my actions have. Try to keep from acting in cruelty borne of carelessness; if I am to act or speak cruelly or unkindly, let myself be mindful that I am doing so, and take full responsibility for what I am saying, what I am doing, and any consequences it may have.

* Advocate for myself, for my own needs to be be met, but with mindfulness and awareness. Stand up for myself and be sure to find space and resource to adequately care for myself.

Drowning in Adrenaline

I was just standing in a parking lot just a short while ago that got shot up. My friend had the presence of mind to notice how things were escallating and to duck down under my car, but I just sort of stood there out in the open like a dumbass because I've never been around a situation like that before. I ducked down with her, but only after the shooting was done.

Next time i hope to ducke down at least midway through.

She is more worldly than I and thought maybe "it was 38's, but certainly not 42's".

I'm fine. Just kind of stunned. And drowning in adrenaline.

I am rarely out in an ihop parking lot at 3am. Almost never, i would say. I don't believe I will be in a hurry to be again any time soon.

I do live in a major metroplis, but i've never been around gunfire before in my life. It didn't even seem real. Seemed like firecrackers. Everything sort of moving in slow motion.

Oh my.

Breathe, Kathryn, breathe... deep breath, breathe now.

2 + 2 = A Great Evening, For All That

Two people treated me coldly at a dance last night.

One, who I used to think was a close friend of mine, and who I approached at the end of the evening warmly and with no ill will, spoke disapprovingly to me of choices that he knows nothing about, and then dismissed me without further thought.

The other, whom I hardly know at all, turned his back on me at the end of a song and walked away without a word or a goodbye, as if to say, "I did not enjoy our connection as we danced, therefore there is nothing of value to you and you are not worth even a cursory goodbye."

I don't understand why people treat others in such a manner. Dance aside, tango aside.... there are so many ways to connect, and value in so many aspects of of the people around us. So much to appreciate. So much life beyond the small world of tango! Why brush that aside so brusquely? I am sure that I take the people around me for granted sometimes, but I want to try as best I can to keep perspective, an open heart and an open mind.

On the other side of the same coin, I had two absolutely lovely interactions tonight, as well.

Two relatively new friends of mine came out to the dance solely because they knew that I would be there. I greatly enjoyed talking with them, getting to know them better, and briefly dancing with one of them.

Another friend of mine soliloquized very sweetly to me, about me, at the close of the night. Her flattering but sincerely spoken words and were a balm to my spirit. I felt near to tears as she spoke.

I must be at a good point in my life. At other times in the past the cold interactions would really have gotten under my skin, but last night they rolled fairly easily off me. But just now I feel so good about the world, about this gift of life, about the amazing people that surround me, that a few people who are unfortunate enough not to notice or be privy to all this goodness are not able to blind me to it or to pull me down. It's interesting how much one's current inner space and state informs the way and degree to which feedback from the outside world is taken and internalized. And in what way that feedback is colored, and which feedback is given most notice.

Happy!

Sublimely happy.

Doldrums

I'm depressed.

It's not a "just in this moment" thing, it's a generally thing. This last week, I find myself taking offense to things that people around me do or say, things that usually would not bother me. I'm having more trouble amassing the energy to do just basic things. And I feel....unhappy. For no reason that I can put my finger on.

I also feel isolated. I don't know how to talk to people about it; when I do they quickly respond with, "Is it something I said?"

No. It's not something you said.

It's nothing to do with you at all.

Maybe it's everything with Jaimes and the lawyer and all the money we've spent and STILL not being able to even file our initial paperwork for our residence application and feeling quite helpless as to determining my own destiny or timeline in this process, all of that weighing down on me. We had a large setback with Jaimes last week; a month ago I thought, for sure, here we are through the door and we will be filing within days, but turns out we needed just a bit more. But he's now again unwilling, and now we're back to being stopped up by him, not able to file anything at all. When we do file, it will supposedly take Swedish migration another 6-9 months to give us their decision, and we don't know when we can even start that process. This all certainly doesn't help, I guess, even if I can't pin it as the cause.

Maybe it's the weather. Except the weather has been amazing. The last few days felt like a bite of summer.

Maybe it's simple brain chemistry.

A lot of the time I feel okay, perhaps even most of the time. But more often than I would like, this last week or two, when I find myself with some time to stop and reflect, I feel...sinking. When I'm busy enough, I don't feel it. But in those respite periods, it feels like gravity is pulling on me harder than usual, everything is heavier.

Wish me well.

I hope this passes soon. I hope, also, that this most recent push with the lawyers turns out not to be too expensive, and is the last push we need to finalize and file the parenting plan we actually agreed to four long months ago.

United Breaks Guitars

I'm not flying United, I'm flying KLM. Still, would it be unwise to bring my guitar?

It looks like they will probably let me bring it as hand baggage, "provided it fits in the overhead bin". But if they don't... aiee! It is a very nice guitar, and I don't want to trust it to the hold.

Anecdotal stories across the net seem to indicate that most of the time they will allow a guitar as hand baggage, but every once in a while they will force it to be checked. Please, please, KLM, do not force me to check it.

Happy, Happy, Joy Joy Joy.

Three people have come up tonight raving about my music. The last one said, "You always play the best music! You should DJ more!"

It feels...good, to be appreciated. I've been enjoying playing music more again recently, and happy to know that some people are appreciating my efforts. Feelings flying high!

Car Insurance Turnover

Goodbye, Geico, hello Amica!

Amica's offered rate cuts more than 20% off my premiums that existed before I reported the move to Geico. I'll now be paying 63% of what Geico would have insisted on charging me going forward, for the same coverage. Hooray for shopping around!

Car Insurance Racket

I'm moving this weekend. I'll still be living in Seattle, 6 miles from my current apartment.

For this, Geico is bumping my car insurance premiums by 20%. @#$@#%!!!!

My driving patterns have not changed. My driving record has not changed. I don't even have comprehensive coverage on my main car, just liability. I hardly drive at all; maybe once or twice a week, most weeks, probably somewhere in the ballpark of 1000-2000 miles a year total. This won't change at the new address; if anything, I'll probably drive less. And yet they're going to charge me an extra $40/month! What a racket.

I guess it's time to start shopping insurance. Or to hurry up and sell the Miata. And maybe the Taurus also.

So lame...

The Old Kat

We're moving this month, to a smaller place. In the process of trimming down for the move, I've been sorting through boxes of papers ranging the last 15 years.

Just now I found a small sheet of crib notes I must have made for a job interview some time back:

• growth potential?
• fast moving or stagnant?
• how many recent new hires?
• can people move on if they don't like it, or are they locked in for some time?
• mobile? immobile?
• consistent? (~ no growth)
• how marketable will I be, coming out of your area?
• how are you on training? will you help me? mentors? how do you help new people get on board?
• how is your dept for teamwork? do people work together? or alone on separate components (as a "team")?

It was so...thorough. I don't feel like I'm really thorough in that way about anything I do in my life now. What happened to that Kat? When did I become so complacent? When did I stop asking questions?

Argh!!!

Our goldfish is dead.
Why is our goldfish dead???
I really liked that fish.
I fed him.
I talked to him.
I enjoyed him.
We hadn't even had him two weeks!
Why why why why why?
:-(

That Crazy Google Search Box...

Found this set of articles in Slate recently to be quite entertaining:
Awkward Suggestions
Is It Wrong To Sleep With Your Sister?

Object of Procrastination

I finished reading Lonely Werewolf Girl this morning. It was pulpy, but I liked it. I wasn't ready for it to be done. I wish we didn't have to wait til August of next year for the sequel to come out.

This I Believe

Someone mentioned absurd beliefs tonight, which got me thinking about my own. So here they are:

My most absurd belief was, when I was a child, that the world is actually very, very small, maybe on the order of nothing being more than a 20 or 30 minute drive from anything else. But that all adults conspired to make children believe that it was much, much bigger than that, in the same way that they conspired to make children believe that there is a Santa Claus or a Tooth Fairy. Who knows why adults do anything they do? But certainly, if they take you on a "6 hour trip" to grandma's house, they are just driving in circles for all that time, to maintain the fiction. Which is why everything starts to look the same after a while, corn fields, brick store facades, houses after houses after houses, more corn fields, etc.

I'm not sure when I grew out of that belief, but I believed it for a while. And proselytized it to other kids.

My most absurd belief now?

These days... I don't know. My parents would probably point toward some of my "hippy inclinations":

I believe that western medicine is largely flawed, in that it largely works to treat symptoms without understanding underlying causes. And these days, with people in and out, without a long term relationship with a single physician, it often loses sight entirely of the whole person, or the complete medical history, which makes it even more into that treating symptoms without thought or understanding of underlying issues.

I believe that we over-medicate ourselves, and that we medicate for symptoms that we
mightn't have to if we were to understand and address some underlying causes.

I believe that American culture, right now, generally raises its children in exclusion to all other children, and very highly prizes material things and de-emphasizes community and interpersonal skills, and I don't believe that's a healthy way to raise a child. I believe that things like all our strollers facing out, away from the parent (versus European buggy-style strollers where the child lies down facing the parent) and our diapering and potty training systems are symptoms of this problem, and serve to exacerbate the problem.

I believe that if you have some amount of faith, you will find what you need. The universe, or god, perhaps, will provide. I've never worried that much about jobs, even when I haven't fond one for long periods of time, because one always seems to find me when I'm starting to need it. Whether I explicitly seek it out or not. All of my techie jobs found me; I never sought any of them out. My tango work has generally found me. My nannying work found me. I'm not living the high life, but I always have enough, I'm able to live my life on my terms (currently, I've been able to work entirely in a way that has allowed me to have my daughter at home with me for all of the first three years of her life), and when my resources start to seriously dwindle, something invariably comes along that allows me to address that and to start creating more resources.

"Absurd" is, of course, somewhat subjective.

What are your most absurd beliefs?

Where I've Been

I got out of the habit of blogging, I think, when I got really involved with Jaimes.

Partly he didn't like me spending time on computers, especially after I got pregnant.

Partly, one never knew what could come back to be an issue of contention later. Any time I committed myself to a belief or to some version of events or to some interpretation of the world around me, it was subject to later criticism.

Partly, whenever I did blog, so much of what I had to say was negative. I got tired of all my own whining. I don't want this journal to be merely an outlet for venting and self-pity; I want it to be an exploration of whatever comes to mind, good or bad, meaningful or trite. When that starts skewing to entirely complaints, it's not a good balance.

Partly, I think, after a time, there started to be a dynamic in my life where almost all my friends disapproved of my relationship with Jaimes, and were worried about me, and I was still in denial about it. It was almost like I was living a lie, that I was creating, that everything was fine. That the relationship was good. And I couldn't sit down and really reflect, and still be able to maintain that.

So I stopped reflecting, in some sense.

That was maybe the biggest factor.

Now I'm strongly out of the habit. And habits are hard to break or create.

Filling The Gap

I've made friends with a guy who lives in the basement apartment below me. He comes up late at night sometimes to hang out and chat, or to play a game of cribbage or such.

It's nice having an adult someone to interact with at those odd hours, when Ravenna is sleeping and I actually have time to myself to do things for me, but which are often kind of lonely. Stuck at home, can't go out and leave the sleeping child alone.

It has been especially nice since I have been spending many of my days, all day long, with toddlers and babies, and sometimes end up spending days on end without any adult interaction at all. You'd think you wouldn't get lonely, hanging out with children all day long. Small children are, after all, people! They are fun! There is a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment to be had in interactions with them! But... they are not peers. You can't really have a conversation with them. And somehow, some days, being entirely and only in their company is much, much lonelier than it would be just to be completely alone.